I'm watching the show for the first time and I just finished the 13th episode of the 3rd season. I have to say, it has to be one of my favourite so far, maybe with the season 2 and 3 premieres. Let me explain :

The episode focuses on Xander and his insecurities as the "useless one" (so to speak) in the group. He gets a nice car and has his own little adventure with zombies trying to bomb the school while the rest of the group is (quite literally) preventing the apocalypse from happening.

Now, I don't know if meta is the right word to describe what happens, but it's the closest I could find. Mostly, I think, because the episode reminded me of Community (one of my favourite shows), in which the idea is brought up that life keeps its course for the characters, even outside of the main plot. For example, you have the episode where Abed delivers a baby in the background, or when the secondary characters reference the cliquey-ness of the Greendale 7 (when we see some characters complain about the main group locking up the study room to find Annie's pen, or always being the center of attention at Garret's wedding). Anyways, I've always loved the references to secondary storylines in shows, because of how it allows us, the viewers, to "remember" that we're watching TV by reminding us that we're only shown what the showrunners want us to see, while giving more depth and development to some of the characters.

And I feel like that's what happens in this episode of Buffy. Xander has his own plotline, and we're occasionally shown the other characters doing their thing in the background, but it's secondary - which reminds us that, even when we're not watching, things are still happening in Sunnydale. I also think the gravity of the apocalypse situation in contrast to Xander's zombie thing works as a comic relief (the scene where Buffy has this grandiose love talk with Angel and is interrupted by Xander, who then and goes on to sleep with Faith as if the situation is not dire is especially well brought up, imo).

Finally, the play on the "guy thinks sex and a car will fix his insecurities" trope is super smart, because, well, it actually works here.

I wasn't such a big fan of Xander at that point, but I have to say, I really liked this episode. I dislike Xander a little less now.

How about you all? What did you think of the episode? What term other than 'meta' would you use to describe this? I'm curious to know!